Speakers

Hans Rijpkema

Hans was born and raised in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands. When all the big waterworks around his home were finished and it was safe to take his finger out of the dyke he went to the University of Twente for a masters degree in Computer Science. He worked at the Dutch Institute for Computer Animation (SCAN) for five years as head of R&D (working on train simulators for the Dutch and European railways) and teacher of computer graphics and animation for a masters degree programme.

In 1996 he came to Rhythm and Hues to start up the character rigging department. While writing new tools into R&H proprietary software for rigging purposes he moved into the software department where he is now responsible for a wide variety of topics related to character development, like character rigging and skinning, fur grooming and animation, crowds, model creation and deformation and the character lighting pipeline.

Over the last 10 years he has worked on over 30 feature films like f.e. Mousehunt, Babe: Pig in the City, Frequency, Harry Potter I, Cats and Dogs, Elf, Scooby Doo, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Night at the Museum.